


Lotus Eaters (Dream until the Morning Comes)

by ersatzbeta



Series: That Old Black Magic [2]
Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sex Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 11:37:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19356277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ersatzbeta/pseuds/ersatzbeta
Summary: Up to this point, Joel wouldn’t have said that he had a type when it comes to men. But, seeing the man across the table from him, he looks exactly like someone Joel would go out with, designer glasses, button-down, and all.Too bad Joel doesn't remember a single thing about when they first met three days ago. It feels like he might have forgotten something important...





	Lotus Eaters (Dream until the Morning Comes)

**Author's Note:**

> This picks up directly after "I Put A Spell on You", so if you haven't read that yet, you will want to.
> 
> I really hadn't intended to do any further adventures of Gojyo the easy lay and his new friend Hakkai the incubus. I really hadn't. I was happy with where I left things, and I considered it to be self-contained.
> 
> But now there's this, the product of three months of pushing a spurious plot as far as I could take it.
> 
> This story contains so many F-bombs, supernatural shenanigans, seriously improbable sex stuff.... and maybe some tentacles. *cough*
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

 

_=+=+=+=+=+=_

 

_It is the law of his world that everyone starves: for food, for water, for love, for light. The Pit is a terrible place to be._

_He awakens in the dark, and he is full of a searing hunger. His body sharpens itself over thoughts of spent mortals. He's hungry, so hungry. How long has it been? A hundred years, at least, since the last one. He remembers the contracts made in the living air, the willing flesh stoked higher by his own brand of magic, coaxing the life out of them one at a time. He drained them to the dregs, right down to the crisp, bitter ends, then severed them, like biting grapes from their stems._

_Over the centuries it has become a game. How long he can wait before sating himself, how little can he take, how far he can push before they submitted and gave him the last drops of their lives. He isn’t an indiscriminate killer, far from it. It is an art to divine the intentions of mortals, to see into the hearts of them and know that this is what they want. Most of them don’t want what he offers. They balk at the selfishness and selflessness of what he required, and he understands. From these, he takes only their suffering. It is enough to live on, but it does not satisfy._

_And now he waits, in the dark with the countless thousands of his kind pressing close all around him, filled with longing and despair and the bitter black hope of those who have waited eons to see the sun, to swallow and be pierced through by the sharp sweetness of a mortal life. He waits for a sign. He waits to be summoned, to bargain his skill against the desires of mortals._

_He can hardly believe he has anything like hope left in him._

_Time moves strangely in the dark. A year, a moment, an hour, a day. It’s all the same, stretching out into infinity before and behind. The only time that counts--and perversely, the only time that doesn’t stand still--is the time bound into an agreement. It is enough to move a saint to tears, truly it is. But he has no body to cry with, no mouth to make a sound. There is simply darkness and something electric stretching from atom to atom like a haze of smoke or of mist. There is a self, just, but there is also a multitude, a droning one-ness that creeps ever closer in the long moments between contracts._

_It’s enough to drive one mad. Or to dissolution._

_And then, like lightning, he is struck through the ether. His presence gathers, strengthening the connection, and he can hear._

_“Hello?”_

_That voice--he hadn’t expected…._

_“Hey, um, can you hear me all right?”_

_YES._

_He speaks without speaking, direct to the synapses._

_“So this is going to sound stupid, but I was hoping you could tell me who you are?”_

_He shivers, because this voice is sunlight to him, warming and bright._

_“I uh, found your card in my jacket and...uh…”_

_The voice fades a little, and he has to draw things out, keep talking before the feeling dissipates._

_YES?_

_“I was hoping we could maybe grab a coffee or something and talk?”_

_IF YOU WOULD LIKE._

_“My name’s Joel, by the way. In case I uh...didn’t introduce myself.”_

_Joel clears his throat and he remembers, vividly, the texture of the inside of Joel’s mouth._

_“Okay so, uh, is tonight too soon? Or maybe I dunno, tomorrow?”_

_How desperate Joel must be to offer so quickly, and how pathetic and prideless it would be to accept immediately, no matter how he wants to._

_SOON. THREE DAYS, IF YOU CAN WAIT._

_It will be all the sweeter for waiting._

_“Wednesday works,’ says Joel. “Eight O’clock? The coffee shop on Willow and third.”_

_Through the ether, he feels the connection solidify, like a spider’s thread drawn between them. It pulses with hot excitement. Time bears down on them. Three days. Just three days._

_I WILL COME FOR YOU._

_“Great. Yeah,” says Joel. “I’ll uh, see you then. Looking forward to it.”_

_A pause, and he strains to hear Joel’s breathing, to hear anything._

_“Bye,” says Joel._

_UNTIL THEN._

_Then Joel is gone._

_And, except for the invisible sense of time still hanging in the air, so is he._

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel has been listening to the dial tone for about thirty seconds when he realizes what he’s done. Shit. He just sounded like a total idiot. And desperate, and lame, and all the things he did not want to sound like when trying to impress someone. Or at least, not make a bad impression. And especially not when he isn’t even sure what kind of impression he wants to make. Hell, he doesn’t even remember the guy’s name, or what he looks like. Maybe he doesn’t want to know this guy at all. He’s just curious, that’s all. His body tells him he’s had a fucking fantastic time, but he isn’t sure if it’s worth it, where he has no memory of any of it. He wants to know, just a little, what he has missed.

The voice of the man hadn’t given him any real clues--soft-spoken, manners on the verge of old-fashioned.

“Dammit, I didn’t even get his name,” says Joel.

He scuffs the toe of his shoe against the curb and slides his phone into his pocket, considering whether or not he’d get jilted if he calls back immediately to ask for his name. He sighs and then shakes his head sharply.

“Nah,” Joel says. “I’ll find out in three days, anyway.”

Three days would go by in no time, surely, and then he’d finally meet Mr Mystery. A flash of something goes through him, and he is suddenly very aware that just talking on the phone to the guy has him half hard. Damn. Joel tries to think un-sexy thoughts cause no way can he stroll back into the office like this.

He glances down at the crotch of his jeans.

“This had better be worth it, or you and I are going to have a serious heart to heart,” he says, to himself but mostly to his stupid, idiot dick. It doesn't make him any less hard.

Neither does thinking the least sexy things he can think of. Joel sighs and resigns himself to a punishing speed-walk for the rest of his break. What a fucking iste of his free time.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Three days fly by in a blur; Joel’s relatively low work standards slip even further. Every phone call he answers makes his heart leap into his throat because it could be _him_ on the other end. But of course it’s not. Still, the stress of it wears on him, and he tries (with little success) to dodge the laser-intense scrutiny of Douglas every time Douglas goes in or out of the office. It’s a good thing Joel knows he actually does like him, because the dirty looks he gets from those violent, violet eyes would be enough to make him quit, if he didn’t know better. It’s almost as bad as the time Joel told a bunch of blond jokes where he could hear.

But Douglas’s shitty attitude doesn’t really touch him this time, because today is Wednesday, date night, and it’s just about quitting time. Joel feels in his pocket for the business card to call and make sure the guy will actually show, but he can’t find it anywhere. Shit.  He even checks his trash can. Nothing. And there’s not enough time to run back home and check there. He can’t find it in his recently dialed list, either, which is strange, but maybe that’s just down to the weird, shitty connection they’d had on that call. Still. Either the guy would show or not, and it’s nothing Joel can change.

He knows he’s grinning like an idiot as he leaves the office. He has a good feeling about this. everything’s going to work out just fine.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

They go for a coffee in a cafe Joel likes, during the early evening hours. The school kids and business people have cleared out, but they’re in too early for drunk partiers trying to sober up. No commitment to a sexy atmosphere, just a meet and greet if it turns out Joel is better off not remembering.

The man is a shade too thin from what Joel could see, like maybe he isn’t eating as regularly as a person should, or as if he’s been sick and is now recovering. Not that he looks sick. Just a little thin.

Up to this point, Joel wouldn’t have said that he had a type when it comes to men. But, seeing the man across the table from him, he looks exactly like someone Joel would go out with. Sharp green eyes, shaggy chestnut hair, the corners of his narrow mouth turned up. Scarily designer glasses and a crisp button-down. The light gleams along the face of the watch clasped around his wrist and catches, glittering, on a couple of silvery studs marching up one of his ears. Joel’s first reaction is to reach out and trace along them, and he has to make a conscious effort not to be weird. You don’t do that to someone you’d just met (met again.)

“So, uh, my name is Joel,” he says. “And this is going to sound dumb, but how drunk were we?”

The man smiles.

“Augustine,” he says. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Again.”

Joel can’t stop the flush rising up his neck. He turns his attention to his drink for a moment, stirring the surface of it until the milk mixes in completely.

“So uh, what do you do for work?” says Joel.

“Oh, I’m in sales,” he says. “Negotiations and contracts, things of that nature.”

Well, that explains things, a little: money for the designer frames, slightly conservative clothes, but a bit of a wild streak showing in the jewelry. Joel doesn’t like the idea that he’s maybe the slum part of slumming it, but if they click, he can expand Augustine’s worldview.

“And yourself?”

Joel flushes a little further.

“Ah, office whipping boy,” he says.

Augustine’s elegant eyebrows sweep upward, somewhere between alarm and amusement. Joel grina and shrugs. He notices Augustine watching the way he moves, and it pleases him.

“Hey, reception’s a scary place some days,” says Joel. “People are bastards when they don’t have to look you in the eyes.”

Augustine hums a non-word of agreement and nods.

“Face to face isn’t always much better,” he says. “Business can be an ugly place.”

He sips his coffee and returns the cup to the table.

“But enough shop talk,” Augustine says. “Tell me, what do you do in your off-time?”

Besides hot business men, apparently.

“Nothing real exciting,” says Joel. “Go to the movies sometimes, read a little, go jogging if I feel like punishing myself. Hang out with friends.”

Joel’s life sounds like garbage laid out like that. Super boring garbage. But Augustine still looks interested, or at least he has an amazing poker face.

“It sounds lovely,” says Augustine. “I’m afraid it’s all work and very little play for me.”

He stretches for a moment, rolls his shoulders a little.

“Still, it’s not without its compensations,”  he says. “For example, our mutual friend Zachariah. I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of your acquaintance had I not been discussing a contract with him.”

“Wait, what?” says Joel. “Zack is working with you?”

Augustine shrugs and see-saws one hand.

“We had been making negotiations, but, unfortunately, our business needs aren’t compatible.”

Joel frowns, trying to imagine what in the fuck Zack and Augustine could have for joint business opportunities. Zack does a lot of legally gray and outright illegal stuff. Even the legal businesses (like the porn site) are not something you want to hear a lot about. Like how sausage gets made.

“Still, it is worthwhile, to meet you,” says Augustine.

He smiles then, and Joel is pleasantly warmed by it. He risks brushing his hand against Augustine’s, and a jolt of pure chemical attraction races up his spine. Shit, yeah. Augustine’s eyes are hot on him. Joel swallows hard.

“There’s a nice hotel I know, just a couple streets away,” he says. “If you wanna.”

Joel has to work hard to act casual, just in case Augustine decides to crush his hopes and dreams for a hot and sweaty evening between the sheets.

Augustine leans close and traces a long finger over Joel’s mouth.

“I’d like that,” he says.

“Okay,” says Joel.

He takes a halfhearted sip of his coffee and tries not to choke on it while thinking about sucking Augustine’s cock. He feels himself start to get hard. It isn’t moving too fast, surely, if everyone is on board and they’ve technically already tangoed. Joel plays things fast and loose, but he does have standards. Kind of.

Augustine strokes the back of Joel’s hand, and Joel knew his pants would be too tight, damn it. (Okay, so he doesn’t have standards. None, not if a simple touch has him wanting to hump a man’s leg ten minutes after learning his name.)

“Allow me to call my driver,” says Augustine. “If you don’t mind riding with me. It’s quite private.”

Joel had taken the train to get here. A car would be so much nicer. Also, is that an intimation that they can fool around in the backseat?

“Hell no,” Joel says. “Call away.”

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

The two of them split a cigarette in the car, passing it back and forth as they sit side by side, and it has Joel hotter under the collar than he can remember being in a long time. Every time their fingers brush it’s a promise of more. Augustine’s thigh burns against his. Joel finally gives in to the impulse to touch, too, and he cards the hair back behind Augustine’s ear. The fine strands snag a little between his fingers, but Augustine doesn't seem to mind. If anything, he presses that much closer to Joel. Joel shivers a happy shiver.

All too soon the cigarette is down to the filter, and the car pulls to a stop outside the hotel.

“I’ll be right back,” says Joel. “Lemme see what they’ve got for rooms.”

“All right,” says Augustine.

He leans over and kisses Joel, then, on the jaw, and then on the lips. His pupils swallow the green of his eyes down to a brilliant scrim, framed in the gleam of his glasses.

“Hurry back, lover,” Augustine says.

And it should have been awkward or corny, but Augustine is without even a hint of irony or self-consciousness. It is, Joel finds, one of the hottest things he’s ever heard.

Joel slides out of the car and stretches his legs wide, eating up the yards to the hotel door. Once inside, he does probably the fastest booking he’d ever done. One room for the night, queen, third floor, balcony overlooking the abutting park. Perfect. He swipes his credit card and scribbles his name on the line, waving off the offer of a copy for himself.

Joel dithers for about thirty seconds thinking about stupid stuff--should he call or text or just walk out there to Augustine? Even if he’s just rented a hotel room for the express purpose of fucking, it seems not quite right to text. It isn’t exactly his average booty call. Fuck, he’s overthinking it. So he flashes a quick smile and a thank-you to the clerk, pops out the door, and almost twists his ankle on the curb in his haste to get the car door open.

Augustine looks up at him expectantly from inside the vehicle.

“All set?’ he says.

“Yup,” says Joel. “Got us a nice room.”

He holds out his hand to Augustine, who takes it in his own, slides over on the seat, and leans into Joel for a moment. It occurs to Joel that Augustine is at the perfect height to suck him off like this. Augustine smiles up at him, like he knows what Joel is thinking.

“Another time, perhaps,” he says. “Shall we?”

Like an afterthought, he gets out of the car, the back of his free hand making contact with Joel’s fly. Joel inhales sharply. Augustine extracts his hand from Joel’s, his fingers caressing Joel’s palm on the way.

Joel follows Augustine into the hotel like he is sleepwalking, like the whole setup is a hot dream and he’ll wake up any second with his own hands on his aching dick. The quick elevator ride does nothing to dissipate the dreamy feel.

They run the keycard together. The room is a good size, the bed crisp and inviting, the bathroom partly visible through a second doorway. There is even a tiny sitting area with a rug and a couch dividing the lines of sight. The bed faces the sliding doors that lead to the promised balcony with a view of the park, though there isn’t much to see at this time of night. It is their very own rented kingdom.

Joel is, strangely, tongue-tied at the sight of it all, at the idea that they could do everything and anything, right then. There are so many choices, and all of them seem perfect.

He wanta to fuck all night, til neither of them can move. He wants to wreck the bed. He wants to blow Augustine in the shower, to rub himself between Augustine’s thighs, to fuck and be fucked against the wall and the door and bent over the back of the sofa. He wants Augustine on his knees on the bed, scraping the paint from the walls with the headboard and panting for mercy against the pillows. He wants to be pressed against the cold glass of the windows and fucked hard until he can taste Augustine’s dick crawling up his throat. He wants things he can’t even name, and things that scare him to want, and he wants it all _right now_.

“Oh yes,” says Augustine. “Let’s.”

He practically purrs in Joel’s ear, and Joel shudders at the pleasure of his voice and the hard hands gripping his waist.

“Hmm?” says Joel. Has he said all of that out loud?

“A verbal contract is just as good,” says Augustine. “In the business world, you know?”

Joel nods vaguely, even though it doesn’t make any sense to him at the moment.

“So say it,” says Augustine. “Tell me your fantasy.”

The hairs on the back of Joel’s neck prickle. His breath stutters on the exhale.

“Anything,” he says. “Everything. All night, every which way, easy, hard, whatever.”

Joel feels his dick surge, even trapped as it is behind his zipper.

“Fuck do I want you right now,” he says.

“Very good,” says Augustine. “Now, be a dear and close the door.”

Joel laughs. Right. The door.

Even as Joel turns to close it, Augustine starts to strip. Joel joins him the second the latch clicks home.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

It's somewhere around the third round that Joel notices Augustine is beginning to change: less urbane and more...unearthly. At first he figures it’s the first-rate fucking, but the more time goes by, the more Joel thinks it’s like Augustine is wearing a mask, and the mask has started to slip away. Joels feels almost cheated that Augustine might have been holding back on him, that he’s been being polite or whatever. Because the more they fuck, the more Joel _feels,_  and the more he realizes that there’s been something missing in the equation. Augustine writhes against him, in him, in a way that had Joel gasping. His train of thought derails.

“Shit, yeah,” he says. “Give it to me, just like--”

He can feel Augustine’s lips curve into a smile against the nape of his neck.

“Oh yes,” Augustine says. “exquisite.”

He bites down, thrusts hard enough that Joel shoves forward an inch on the bed. Augustine’s left hand anchors itself against Joel’s hip, and his right strangles Joel’s dick in the nicest of ways. Joel comes hard, joy washing over him and settling into his bones. He turns his face to the side and pants against the sheets. He’s giddy and a little lightheaded.

Augustine lasts a few more thrusts before he grunts against Joel’s shoulder and comes too. He doesn’t move for a long minute or two, slowly softening inside Joel. Augustine sighs and disengages. Joel hears the faint slap of the condom hitting the wastebasket.

“Here,” says Augustine. "Take this."

Joel rolls over to look at what Augustine has for him.

Augustine hands him a wet wipe. Joel does a quick swab-down, wishing he could get it up again right then as he watches Augustine clean himself in a thoroughly unintentionally sexy way.

“Damn you’re hot,” says Joel. “C’mere.”

He reels him in for a  kiss; off-center, and a near miss on clashing teeth, but it has Joel humming with pleasure anyway.  They part, and he fumbles for the pack of smokes on the nightstand. Augustine flicks the lighter and Joel leans into the proffered flame before laying back down. Funny. Augustine’s eyes look a little different, a little brighter or more sharp or something. Whatever. It’s probably just his brain playing tricks, blinded by the lighter or just plain misremembering. Augustine’s glasses have long since been set aside, somewhere between the door and here, and that probably accounts for the subtle differences in his face now. Either way, Joel reflects, Augustine is stupidly attractive.

Joel exhales, content, and he watches the smoke dissipate against the ceiling.

“You’re something else,” he says. “I must have been totally blackout drunk the other night, to not remember something like this. Sorry ‘bout that.”

Augustine laughs, and Joel admires the long line of his throat and the flash as his earrings catch the light. He remembers the slide of the metal against his tongue and the way Augustine had moaned at his kiss there. Joel takes another drag.

“I’m so glad you called me,” Augustine says. “Truly. Your company is everything I could have asked and more than I could have hoped for.”

Augustine sighs and presses a little closer to Joel. Joel snakes his arm around Augustine’s shoulders. He stubs his cigarette out before he burns himself or does something dumb like set the sheets on fire. Joel finds himself stroking Augustine gently, half hypnotized by the movements: skin to hair, hair to skin, following the length of the strands and passing from his cheek, down his neck, to the smooth skin along Augustine’s collarbones.

A minute passes, or perhaps an hour. It all blurs together in one soft, long movement of time, just breathing and touching. Joel hasn’t felt this kind of contentment maybe ever in his life. He hadn’t realized until now just how tense he’s been, how he’s held himself just so, before, carrying it through his shoulders and back. Except that feeling is gone now, replaced by this quiet something. Joel sighs.

“I have to go soon,” says Augustine.

Joel’s heart sinks at the murmured words. Here comes reality, naturally.

“Yeah, probably I should go too,” says Joel. “What time is it, anyway?”

He doesn’t want to move, not even to turn his head to look at the clock.

“It’s seven,” says Augustine.

“In the morning?” says Joel. “Really?”

Joel would be fucked at work then, with no time to nap. He shrugs. Another perk of adulthood, right there. He sits up, makes himself be the first one to pull away.

“I’m gonna hit the shower,” he says. “You can come with, if you want.”

Augustine’s smile is almost wistful. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on Joel’s part.

“I can’t,” Augustine says. “But please, feel free to call me again.”

Augustine brushes his lips against Joel’s ear, against his jaw, and then gives him a proper kiss. He slides off the bed, and Joel watches him dress.

“Well then, this is goodbye for now,” says Augustine.

“See you around,” says Joel.  “Don’t be a stranger.”

He stares up at the ceiling and listens to the door open and close. Muffled footsteps in the hall quickly disappear, and then he is alone.

“Shit,” says Joel. “Just...shit.”

He is crushingly lonely in that moment. He feels his eyes start stinging, and that is not okay, not even a little. He takes a deep breath and then another. There is something about Augustine.  Something in Joel has responded to him, has felt so damn good beyond the afterglow (times four total, hell yeah), and Joel hates to think he is giving that up when they say goodnight. Good morning. Whatever. Damn, he’s pathetic. It’s chemistry, that’s all--mind-blowing chemistry between them, and nothing more. But now he’s tapped out all his happy, and it’s time to go back to real, disappointing life.

Joel makes himself get out of the bed, then, and he stumbles his way into the hotel shower. The water pounds against his back and shoulders, and his mind goes kind of blank under the combined white noise of the drain gurgling and the water hissing in his ears. Steam curls into his lungs with each breath he takes, and his bleak mood gradually lifts away. He comes back to himself enough to run the soap over his body and shampoo his hair, and then he faces the showerhead directly, closes his eyes, and lets the spray hit him until he can’t feel his face.

Gradually, a sound filters through to Joel. A noise grates on his ears--a ringing phone. His phone. Shit. He slams the water off and exits the shower as quick as he can without breaking his neck.

Joel struggles for a second with fingers gone pruney, trying to get the screen to unlock. Caller ID shows it’s Douglas, calling from his work phone. Fuck.

Joel picks up the call.

“Hey,” he says.

“Where the hell are you? I swear to all that’s holy if you’re screwing around at Z’s again, I’m going to reach through the phone and--”

Joel winces and holds the phone way away from his ear. Even at this distance, Douglas’s voice is acid. Seriously, the man can tear up one side and down the other like no one else Joel had ever met. _Nothing_ makes him happy, and he is always fuming about something. This time, though, Joel can practically hear a stroke coming on.

“You’re an hour and a half late, which gives you about ten minutes until Starling comes in and I have to explain your absence.”

At this time of day, traffic puts Joel at least thirty-five away in a cab, more if he takes the train. It is never, ever a good idea to piss off the boss, and he doesn’t have a fucking prayer of getting there on time.

“Shit,” Joel says. “Cover for me please, you bastard. Butter him up, and I’ll practice grovelling on the way.”

Douglas goes quiet save for his molars grinding together. Joel held his breath and counted down; three mississippi, two mississippi, one mississippi.

“This is the last goddamn time,” Douglas says. “Get your ass here or I will put you in the ground.”

“Thanks, I owe you Douggie,” he says.

“Yes you fucking do,” says Douglas. “And don’t fucking call me that, asswipe. I’m not doing your goddamn job any more.”

He hangs up abruptly, leaving Joel scrambling to get dressed and go.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Neil Starling, CEO and founding member of Two Djinn Data, waits until Douglas leaves for an off-site client meeting before calling Joel in to his office. This is definitely a Bad Sign. Before going into that corner executive office, Joel reminds himself how much he needs his job.

Starling runs the research firm with just a dozen employees, including Douglas and Joel. For Joel, who’d lasted a semester and a half at community college, the job Starling offered him was a huge step up from part-time gigs and third-shift minimum wage. Daytime, decent money, and dental. To make things worse, he's a friend of Douglas’s father, the co-founder of the company (the late, great Kevin Saunders), and Douglas is pretty much the only good friend Joel has, if you could call their name-calling, shouting, and all-night drinking sessions a friendship. Getting fired would be a very not-good thing. So when Starling calls him into his office, he does as he is told.

Starling is in a nasty mood today. He doesn’t dick around, just goes straight for Joel’s solar plexus, winding him with a quick one-two punch. Joel goes gasping to his knees.

“It’s a pity it’s only Thursday,” Starling says. “I like it so much better when you bleed, but then who would answer my phones?”

He smiles at Joel and hits him again. Joel does his best to suck it up, to take the pain as Starling works him over, exaggerated in his care not to hit Joel anywhere that it will show. In a small corner of his mind, he wonders what Augustine would think if he knew that Joel literally is his employer’s whipping boy.

He pants into the carpet and tries to focus on counting the fibers that form each whorl in the pattern. Too bad he already knows the number by heart.

Joel doesn’t really ever question why Starling does what he does--it's obvious that Starling likes to hurt people, and that he keeps Joel around to watch him squirm. Starling had ties to all the bigwigs at Corrections, and since Joel’s brother had been there since Joel was eight, well...it's a no brainer. Do whatever Starling says, or Kurt pays the price. Joel has never cared to test him on that.

Whether Starling hits him with hands or cuts him with words, it's all the same to Joel. Joel knows he should care more, that he should give an actual shit that Starling is playing him like a violin whenever he threatens Kurt, or Joel’s way of life. But he...doesn’t. If his brother is as safe as he could be as he serves his life sentence, and Joel has a decent life, and the cost of all of this is some bruises, it seems a small price to pay. Joel counts another square inch along the carpet.

Eventually, the blows from Starling peter out. Joel glances up; having concluded the beating, Starling is now cleaning his glasses with an immaculate handkerchief. Starling sighed and tucks the handkerchief away. The fucker isn't even breathing hard.

“Get out of my office and get back to work,” says Starling. “Unless you want to be on my floor again tomorrow. ”

Joel shakes his head and struggles up off the carpet. He refuses to meet Starling’s eyes.

The worst part of all of it, the thing that really makes Joel sick about it all, is that it's familiar. He doesn’t like getting hit, but the whole thing is like his childhood done over a little less shitty. No fear for his life this time, no screaming, just the beatings and everything is normal.  In a way Joel almost wants it, that certainty, to know where he stands and to know that this is the way things would always be.

“Don’t forget,” says Starling. “You’re my favorite employee, even if you are useless. Take care of yourself out there.”

Starling’s gentle pat on his back, the parody of concern, makes Joel’s skin crawl. He wants to hurl. He leaves Starling’s office as quickly as he can force himself to move.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel spends the next two hours of his workday hobbling back and forth to the icemaker in the office kitchenette, putting ice packs on his bruises and praying that he won’t run into anyone who might ask questions. His ribs are tender enough that it hurts to take in a deep breath, and every time he reaches for the phone, he fights against himself to stretch that far, knowing that it will hurt to get there and hurt to sit back again.

At lunch, he considers calling Augustine, but what good could that do? The man is just a fuck, and Joel really doesn’t want him asking questions about his injuries. Still, Joel wishes that he could make himself go back to the morning, to pull that calm, soft blankness into himself again. He settles for the pathetic effects of a beer he gulps down with his sandwich and chips. It’s not enough.

He makes it through the rest of the day, though, slogs with the evening crowd on the train, and limps the final, six block walk from the station to his place. Joel collapses in his bed at home and thinks, wistfully, of his life if Starling had never existed.

Eventually, Joel drifts into sleep.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel lasts all of two days before he calls Augustine again. The worst of the bruises are still there, but the little ones have faded to almost nothing, he thinks, and he’s lost enough of the first-day stiffness that cripples him up after a beating so that he can think about something other than Starling and painkillers. Joel deserves something nice, really, and the calm stillness of the afterglow calls to him. He’s had enough practice at glossing over his hurts that he’s not too concerned about what Augustine may or may not see on his body at this point. He’ll come up with something, assuming Augustine asks.

He dials Augustine from memory.

The line rings three times before it picks up.

“Hey, Augustine,” he says. “It’s me, Joel.”

“Hello, Joel,” says Augustine.

“So I was hoping we could meet up again sometime soon,” says Joel. “I had a great time the other night.”

He tries to sound confident and not desperate, but he isn’t sure if he succeeds. The line crackles and fades and Joel hears something like wind roaring in the background before it snaps back.

“---like that,” says Augustine. “I can pick you up. Would seven be acceptable?”

“Tonight?” says Joel.

“I have to confess, I’d like to see you as well,” says Augustine.

Joel feels a bit of a blush start to burn high on his cheeks.

“Tonight’s great,” he says. “So I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“I’ll see you soon,” says Augustine.

“Bye,” says Joel.

He hangs up and slips his phone into his pocket.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

The day disappears.

Augustine picks Joel up not long after the moon rises, and they drive around in the hired car with the partition up, exchanging leisurely handjobs and kisses. There is something wild in the look of Agustine’s eyes, something untamed. He’s almost like a different person tonight, Joel thinks, more demanding, like he’s expecting something from Joel, or waiting for something to happen, though Joel doesn’t know what it could be.

Augustine is also apparently a rimming savant; Joel finds himself making sounds he’s never made before with his face pressed into the seat as they pass under the splashing brightness of the streetlights.

It’s almost too much, this endless slithering invasion, but at the same time it’s not enough--not enough friction, not enough feeling, not enough to reach the hollow spots in his head--until Augustine reaches around and jacks him like he has all the time in the world. Joel comes so fast he barely sees the stars behind his eyes before he’s ruining the upholstery.

Eventually, the car pulls to a stop, right back where they’d started, just a few blocks from Joel’s place. He gets out on wobbly legs, waiting for the world to right itself again. He thinks about kissing Augustine goodnight, but it feels awkward, forced. The wrong moment, maybe. But a handshake would be worse, and a hug is too buddy-buddy. He settled for a lukewarm nod at the half-open window of Augustine’s car.

“So uh, see you around, I guess,” says Joel.

“Please do,” says Augustine.

It is the only thing resembling a conversation they’d had all night.

The car window rolls up, and the vehicle pulls out into the street. Joel watches the brake lights moving further and further away, until the car turns a corner and is gone.

Joel lets go of a breath he didn't realize he’s been holding. He starts walking home.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel only makes it a bare twenty four hours before he calls Augustine again. They meet for drinks that evening at one of a handful of bars Joel trusts to not fuck up a cocktail. (Goddamn has he had some shitty mixed drinks before, and he still kinda sorta wants to impress Augustine, even if they are just fucking around.)

His world lights up when Augustine walks up to his table.

When they kiss, Joel tastes the bitters from Augustine’s drink, and it has him wanting more. Funny. The more he sees Augustine, the more he wants to see him.

This time, they go to another hotel, and Joel pretends not to see the thoughtful frown when he strips off and reveals his technicolor, mostly-healed bruises. Augustine doesn’t ask about them, and Joel is grateful for that. It’s got no business in this room.

Augustine’s hands are careful, almost reverent, and it feels like Joel is underwater and that he’s never going to come up for air. Even though he really didn’t drink that much, things are pleasantly fuzzy around the edges. His eyes keep sliding shut, but he’s ennervated as well, like he’ll never be able to sleep. He is warm and heavy as Augustine rocks into him, and that electric touch on his cock is so good he bites his lip until it bleeds. Augustine kisses him, and the redness smears across his mouth. Joel doesn’t know why he waited so long to get him back into a proper bed. He tells this to Augustine, who laughs.

“Patience is a virtue,” Augustine says. “But you’ve waited enough, haven’t you?”

The sound of his voice and the rough touch of his fingers is enough to make Joel come, all over Augustine’s hand and the sheets and his own belly. Augustine coaxes at his all-too-willing flesh until Joel goes soft in his fingers. He pins Joel to the bed with his hips and pulses against him, shoving inside him as far as he can be. Augustine holds perfectly still while he gasps through it, and Joel’s legs ache in sympathy. Joel kind of wishes they could stay like this. Just for a little while.

“Oh yes, Joel,” says Augustine. “Yes.”

He sighs into the hair at the back of Joel’s neck. After another moment, he pulls out and slumps gently beside him.

Joel lets his thoughts unravel. The energy he’d felt has gone, like water draining from a cracked bowl, and his entire body feels wrung out. He feels so nice, though. Odd, but nice.

“Shh,” says Augustine. “Just relax.”

Joel had thought he was relaxed already, but the languor settles into him even more deeply. He blinks up at the ceiling, stupefied. Augustine is here, petting his hair gently, and everything is just right. He feels the afterglow wrapped around every part of him.

Joel sighs. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

_Truly, he hates to leave. Hunger claws in his belly, demanding more of the morsel that lies unprotected before him. He know this one would beg for more even as he fades and dies, giving him the last, best portion of his life._

_In a sense, he loves this mortal, who has run and let himself be caught, again and again. Every desire he fulfills, every orgasm he teases out of this man--every time they meet--snares him more deeply. But likewise is he helpless to refuse. The taste of him is too sweet, and he craves the time here, safely under contract and out of the darkness of the Pit. Not that this man would refuse him, as deeply drawn as he is._

_There is no good answer, no easy way out. Eat or be eaten; it is the way of things._

_Still, he feels a twinge as he writes one final enticement for the man to find when he wakes. He smooths Joel’s hair and presses a kiss to his forehead._

_“Sleep well,” he says. “My sweet Joel.”_

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel feels like death warmed over in the morning, and his heart jumps in his chest when he sees that it’s Monday morning instead of Sunday. Where did Sunday even go?

He aches, deeply in his bones and he can’t say any of it has to do with the incredible, incredible sex he’s been having; his dick and his butt, despite the mileage he’s put on them with Augustine, are about the only places that don’t feel terrible. He’s hot; he’s got some kind of a fever, or maybe a flu.

Joel can’t remember what happened beyond a general idea that they fucked until they couldn’t fuck any more, and then maybe some more after that when he was exhausted but didn’t want to stop touching Augustine. It’s a weird, almost blank spot in his memory. He’s never done it like that in his life, and so maybe it should worry him, how much he wants and _needs it_ , but how can it be bad when it's so good? Joel wonders if maybe he’s forgotten something, but what is there to forget?  

He flushes and rolls out of the empty bed. Augustine is already long gone, judging by the coldness of the rest of the bed. But there, by Joel’s wallet, is a scribbled ‘call me’ on the hotel stationery.  Joel is half-hard just looking at Augustine’s handwriting. Fuck, does he have it bad. He jams the note in his pocket on his way out the door.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel goes in to work and does his job quietly, and ignores the strange looks from Douglas as he passes back and forth between the copier and his office. He’s in a daze all morning, and not even Starling hovering around really makes a difference. He feels like hot garbage. Joel’s really thinking it must be the flu, cause he’s sweating hot and cold and his eyes and throat are burning and bone dry. He pops a couple of cold pills raided from the office first aid kit for good measure.

He waits all morning, but they don’t do any good.

Joel calls Augustine on his lunch break, just to let him know he’s not feeling well, and probably they should wait a couple days in case it’s contagious.

After lunch, Joel feels better, almost giddy, and he chalks it up to whatever twenty-four hour bug making him feel so shitty finally moving on. He must have been making himself feel worse by thinking about it all morning, and besides, he’s got something to look forward to now: they’ve ended up making plans to meet today after all. Joel feel so well now that he’s practically forgetting the past few hours. He can’t wait to see Augustine again.

The sight of Starling standing next to his desk is like a bucket of ice water all over Joel’s good mood. His mouth goes dry, his palms start to sweat, and he feels sick in the pit of his stomach.

“Ahem, if I could see you in my office please,” says Starling. “I’d like to discuss your performance as of late.”

He follows Starling into his office full of dread, all thoughts of Augustine vanished, no room to think beyond the here and now. Just live, live through one moment. And another.

And another.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel goes home with a black eye and what feels like a cracked rib from a particularly well-placed kick from Starling’s pointed shoes. The only good part about it is that he has until Thursday off, since Starling faked it up like he's sending Joel to recover from whatever sickness he's picked up. Yeah. He has a real case of the beat-downs. Starling’s excuse wouldn’t have worked if anyone had seen his face, but no one had.

Two days isn’t really enough, but Joel will take what he can get. It’ll at least give him enough time to get good with the medications that’ll make it bearable while he recovers. By the time Joel cleans up as best as he can, he’d have to cut off his eyelids to keep them from closing, he’s so exhausted. He can have a short nap, just enough for the medicine to start working, then call Augustine to cancel for real, because there’s no fucking way he can hide this.

Instead, Joel falls completely, utterly asleep. He doesn’t wake up until someone comes knocking on his door. And, the best parts of his brain still being unconscious, he limps from his bedroom, across the living room, to the front door, and has it open for about five seconds before he realizes he shouldn’t have done that.

It’s Augustine. Of fucking course.

“Shit,” says Joel. “Hi there.”

Augustine doesn’t look sane when he sees Joel’s face. He doesn’t look like Augustine at all. He crushes Joel to him, holds him tight with fingers that feel like claws digging into his shoulders. Everything hurts. Fuck, does it hurt. Joel is trapped in Augustine’s embrace, and for the first time it doesn’t feel good. His lizardy hind-brain tells him this is dangerous, and that he should run.

Something in Joel breaks open then, and he starts to remember Augustine by another name. He sees clearly, maybe for the first time, who Augustine really is.

“Fuck,” says Joel. “Octavius?”

It’s been Octavius all along, hasn’t it? Octavius, wearing the mannerisms of Augustine like a favorite suit, a consummate actor just stringing him along, and for what?

Fuck, that hurt. Joel _liked_ Augustine, could have liked Augustine even more and just maybe could have made something serious out of it all if they’d had more time. He breathes as hard and as deep as his bruised chest will let him.

But he can’t say that he likes Octavius at all. Inexplicably hot, probably crazy, (and holy fuck potentially magical?) out-of-nowhere Ocatvius. Joel wonders if he’s finally lost it to even consider such a thing possible, but there’s been just enough that he can’t explain, that science or logic or the rules of the universe as he knows them can’t cover out of all this: the insane attraction, the gaps in his memory, the overwhelming afterglow laying him out cold. The way Augustine--fuck, Octavius--seems to know exactly what he wanted even before he thought of it.  Joel’s always been an easygoing guy, really, going wherever life took him and rolling with the punches, but this is too much. And he knows just thinking these thoughts and doubting what he’s held to be true all this time...there’s no going back from it. But he doesn’t really have a choice now, does he?

Joel wants to hit Octavius in his stupid, smug, hot, lying face. He pushes at Octavius, trying to get a little space to think.

“Why?” he says. “Just--why?”

The hard, wild look in Octavius’s eyes softens, and his hands ease up.

“I have always been as I am,” says Octavius. “But I had hoped--had thought--that you might like me better this way. I wanted to be approachable.”

Octavius shrugs, and if he were anyone else, it might have been out of embarrassment, or a sense of shame because he’d so royally fucked up this thing between them. But it’s Octavius, and Joel knows the shrug is because Joel can either leave it or take it, because it doesn’t matter whether or not Joel likes it. He’s told the truth, as he knows it, and that is the end of it.

In the midst of the strangeness, the not-quite double vision as Joel comes to terms with Octavius being Augustine, Joel lets himself really feel. He doesn’t need Octavius pretending to be someone else just because apparently Joel is so fucking fragile he needed to be protected and lied to so he doesn’t get scared away. So yeah, Octavius is scary as fuck in all the wrong (right) ways, but Joel needs another mind game like he needs a hole in his head. Heat rises in Joel’s face, and he tries to throttle back the anger and the frustration and the humiliation.

The more Joel thinks about it, the more he can almost believe that Octavius is what he’s said he is in the first place. (Christ, that is only last week. How is it only last week because it felt like a year or another lifetime.) Incubus? Sure, it explains a lot, if he can wrap his head around the part where sex demons are _made up_.

“Fuck,” says Joel. “Just--fuck.”

He tries to put his fist through the wall, and his side flashes fire. Joel hisses. His ribs really don’t like it when he moves like that.

It occurs to Joel then that they’re having this insane excuse of a conversation in the doorway. Well, Octavius might not feel embarassment or anything else a _normal person_ might feel, but Joel sure as fuck does, and he doesn’t want his neighbors eavesdropping on this.

“Come in anyway,” says Joel. “Before I do something really stupid.”

He waves one hand, lackluster, in Octavius’s direction, and Octavius breezes past him. Joel sighs and closes the door.

As soon as the door is closed, Octavius is all up in his business again, trapping him against the wall and looking him over. Joel can see him counting the bruises and every minute twitch he makes.

“Who did this?” Octavius says. “Tell me.”

Goddamn, people don’t growl like that. The otherness in his voice puts Joel on edge. Could be dangerous, could be sexy, but Joel doesn’t want to think about that right now, no. He wants to be angry at this asshole who’d barged into his life and fucked his head around and almost made him care about him.

“No way,” says Joel. “This’s got nothing to do with you.”

Octavius’s breath is gentle on him, and his fingers don’t quite touch skin, but it’s still close enough to Joel’s bruised eye to make him flinch away.

“I’ve always known you to be difficult,” says Octavius. “But you should tell me now, for your own safety.”

There’s a sibilance in Octavius’s voice, and his eyes promise violence to whoever Joel would name.

“Fuck off,” says Joel. “I handle my own business.”

He flips Octavius off. Octavius smiles at him.

“You were reluctant the first time we met,” says Octavius. “Remember?”

Joel sucks air hard when Octavius’s palm hovers against his groin, and instantly regrets it with the red pulsing of his side. Octavius’s eyes narrow, and he runs a sharp-nailed finger along Joel’s shirt. It shreds under his touch, leaving Joel exposed.

“Sex isn’t gonna happen right now,” says Joel. “And you owe me a new shirt at the very least.”

Joel can feel the heat of Octavius’s hands just brushing over the purple and black glory of his torso, and he wriggles away a fraction.

“No,” says Joel. “Get bent, you son of a bitch.”

Octavius looks at him again, his green eyes gleaming. He presses against Joel’s uninjured side and strokes his cheek just beneath his black eye.

“I know you much better now,” says Octavius. “Even if your mouth says no, I know your desires.”

Octavius kisses him on the cheek, feather light.

Joel tries to think about something other than how his body aches in every way possible.

“I can’t,” says Joel. “I just can’t. Not with you, not now, and maybe not ever again.”

Pathetic. Totally pathetic. Despite the tension, despite everything swimming around in his head right now, the presence of Octavius has him one step from getting hard. Joel’s face blazes with shame.

“We have an agreement,” says Octavius. “I cannot leave until it is complete, remember?”

Shit, they're supposed to have a date tonight, but that is when Octavius had been Augustine, so Octavius could fuck right off. Joel fought down the urge to punch him for real. He bites the inside of his cheek and counts to ten.

“Look, even if I wanted to fuck--which I don’t, by the way--I’m mad at you and also I’m kind of beat up right now,” says Joel. “So like I said, not going to happen.”

Joel shoulders his way past Octavius and eases himself onto his couch, favoring his bad side. Octavius follows behind him, and the way he just stands around, waiting, is making Joel a little crazy. He’d leave, but he can’t, not unless he wants to potentially spend all night bouncing himself off an invisible wall, if he remembers correctly. He’s in no shape to test out if it is all a delusion before. And, a pathetic part of him thinks, It’s easier to go along with it and just assume that it’s all true, even if it’s completely deluded.

Joel is beyond worn out by it all. He’s so tired of his life.

He sighs and leans back against the cushions, trying to ignore Octavius’s looming.

Other than Octavius being a lying sack of crap, Joel can’t really figure out what the difference between him and Augustine is, what made one so attractive and this one--still attractive, but just different enough to be...not off putting, becuase Joel isn’t actually put off by the crazy and the infuriating, domineering attitude and the possible totally not real real magic and the half-remembered hot marathon sex session they’d had that first night...and every time they’d met since then had just been better and better.

Damn. He's talking himself into it again. Joel should be better than this. He _wants_ to be better than this. But he’s only human, and a perpetual fuck-up at that.

It’s not even a surprise when Octavius cards through his hair without permission, like he knows that Joel isn’t gonna kick him out no matter what he does. Joel can feel the heat of his anger draining away, slowly. It’s not like Octavius has ever meant him harm, right? And he does seem genuinely worried about Joel, even if it’s none of his goddamn business.

“What did I ever do to deserve this?” says Joel. “Seriously. I wanna know.”

Joel wants to be done. If he says yes, they fuck, and he never has to see Octavius ever again, according to Octavius’s own twisty rules of conduct. Joel still balks at the idea that it’s magic. But whatever. The point is that Octavius has to leave so Joel can scrape his life back together again.

“Well, shall we?” says Octavius.

Joel snorts. He’s pissed, still, but it’s getting to the land of the manageable.

“Sure,” he says. “Okay. Why the hell not?”

He’s surprised that Octavius doesn’t just go for the gold. Instead, Octavius’s hands are careful in his hair, kneading his scalp until Joel is supremely relaxed and half-wondereing if they’re going to have sex at all or if he’s gonna fall asleep first. Hell, he could already be asleep and dreaming, stoned on painkillers. It would explain a lot of things. Most of the fight goes out of him, ‘cause apparently whatever’s going to happen is just going to happen, even if it annoys him and isn’t his first choice of how things should be going down.

“Put your arms up,” says Octavius.

Joel moves carefully, acutely aware of his injuries, but he gets his arms high enough to suit Octavius, who proceeds to remove what’s left of his shirt. Octavius’s fingers stroke along his bare arms, sweeping across his shoulders and leaving a tingle in their wake.

Octavius nips at the back of his neck, and Joel wonders, idly, if it will bruise, if he will wear a necklace of bite marks to go along with everything else.

“Shhh,” says Octavius. “My sweet.”

Octavius drapes his arms over Joel’s shoulders, and his breath gusts over one ear and across Joel’s unbruised cheek. His hands just reach Joel’s belt, and Joel watches him slide the buckle open. Joel closes his eyes and feels the rasp of his zipper sliding down.

Joel startles at the feeling of something slithering up his ankle, but Octavius hold him gently in place.

“It’s all right,” says Octavius. “Open your eyes and see.”

So Joel looks. There’s some kind of vine creeping up his legs, which should freak him out more than it does, but Joel is almost tranquilized with the way Octavius keeps stroking his arms. He’s run out of...everything that could make him want to leave. So he sits and watches like his body belongs to someone else.

The vines crawl up him, luminous green, just a little warmer than skin, and they move with intent. They wrap around his waist, snake down the legs of his pants, and before Joel really understands how, the vines peel him out of his jeans. The texture of the vines against his bare legs is almost an itch, or a tickle.

“The hell?” says Joel. “Is that you, doing that?”

Octavius hums gently against his hair.

“I didn’t want you to have to get up,” he says. “Isn’t it nice this way?”

It's stupid easy to give in. Joel felt the vines moving again, this time stealing underneath his boxers. It is a weird feeling, super weird. But he isn’t uncomfortable, and he isn’t being threatened, even if the vines do itch him. In fact, the vines are almost polite about things. They aren’t slippery or smooth like all the dirty stuff Joel had ever seen might have suggested, but maybe that’s ‘cause these are more plant-like than octopus. Deja vu motherfuckers. He will never look at tentacle porn again, he promises himself. (Not that he's eally into that, but there's a big fucking difference between seeing that and seeing _this_.)

Octavius cups Joel as the vines retreat down his ankles, taking the last of his clothes with them. Joel feels himself beginning to stiffen, though Octavius doesn’t move his hands. He holds Joel gently. His hands are warm and dry.

“Did you know that I don’t actually wear clothing?” says Octavius.

“What?” says Joel.

Honestly, if it were possible to get whiplash from the weird twists and turns his life has acquired lately, he’d be in traction.

“I cover myself with, well, myself,” says Octavius. “It’s all atoms and molecules of my substance, rearranged.”

Octavius sucks in a breath of air and, suddenly, Joel sees his sleeves disappear. Ridiculous. He is definitely passed out cold thanks to the pills.  Vines and disappearing clothing only make sense under the influence, not that any of it makes sense.

“That’s some party trick,” says Joel.

He gives up trying to figure it out; there are just too many weird things going on.

“Oh no,” says Octavius. “I don’t normally show that to anyone. But I must confess, it is convenient when I don’t want to let you go in order to disrobe.”

“And the--um--vines,” says Joel. “Those are you too?”

“Very much so,” says Octavius. “I can accommodate many kinds of changes.”

Joel thinks about that. Octavius could literally re-shape himself to please himself or a lover. He swallows. That shouldn’t be as hot to think about as it is.

“Must be nice,” says Joel. “You’d never have to exercise a day in your life.”

Octavius laughs, and it makes him look like Augustine again, just for a second.

“I’d rather do more pleasant things, it’s true,” he says. “Like this.”

He runs his fingers up and down Joel’s cock. Joel hisses through his teeth.

“Shit,” he says. “Shit that’s nice.”

Octavius gives him a few good pulls, enough to get him fully hard and wanting more. Then Ocatvius lets go. Joel tries to twist to grab him, but a pang shoots through him.

“Allow me,” says Octavius. “Please, don’t strain yourself.”

Octavius pads around the couch and kneels in front of Joel.

“Would you like me to suck you?” he says.

His mouth watering, Joel nods.

“All right,” says Octavius.

He takes Joel in his mouth, all the way down without stopping. His hair brushes against Joel’s thighs. Joel exhaled in a rush.

“Fuck,” he says. “Yeah, just like that.”

He pushes the hair back out of Octavius’s face, loving the look in his eyes as he moves up and down, back and forth. Octavius begs him for more with his mouth and lips and tongue, supple and smooth and hot and slick, everything Joel can want at this moment.

He wonders if Octavius even needs to breathe at all, or if it’s just a thing he does to fit in. Because fuck, his tongue is what’s convincing Joel that he’s not just some crazy guy with weird ideas about consent and that just maybe there’s something supernatural here. No one’s tongue is that long. Joel feels it curling around and around him, spiraling around his dick and rubbing the whole way down

“Yeah,” says Joel. “Octavius, shit!”

Octavius pulls back, and Joel wants to cry for the loss, until that flexible tongue is coiled around the head of his dick, teasing.

“Fuck, I’m gonna--” says Joel.

He feels his balls jerk and he tries to slow himself down, to stretch things out because this blowjob is going to ruin him for life. He throws his head back and groans.

Octavius lets his dick go completely, and the temperature difference, from hot to cold, shocks him and holds him at the brink.

“Octavius,” says Joel. “Dammit, finish me off.”

“If it pleases you,” says Octavius.

He winks at Joel. Oh _now_ he makes a joke? And then his lips close over Joel, consistent, insistent, perfect suction and a hint of that tongue probing the hole.

“Shit,” says Joel.

His hips rock a couple of times as he comes, arching up towards Octavius’s mouth, pressing into the soft flesh at the back of his throat, his hands cupping the back of Octavius’s head to hold him there, just there, oh yes, oh yes, shit fuck yes.

Joel reluctantly lets go.

Octavius backs off slowly, running his tongue up and down Joel’s cock, supremely gentle but thoroughly cleaning him. He’s too sensitive, and it feels like Octavius might rub a hole through his skin with each tastebud.

“Enough,” says Joel. “That’s too much.”

Octavius sighs and drops a kiss on the head of his cock before changing angles and laying his head on Joel’s knee. His breath is hot against Joel’s balls.

“Do you think--” Octavius starts. “We could, perhaps…”

“Shit,” says Joel. “Give me a minute, yeah?”

But he is thoughtful as he runs a finger down Octavius’s cheek. He pets him gently and tries to get his brain working again.

“What do you need?” says Joel.

He clears his throat, shakes his head.

“Sorry,” he says. “Not quite the question I meant to ask.”

But Octavius has an answer anyway.

“Violate me,” he says.

Joel chokes on his own breath.

“The fuck,” he says.

He feels Octavius laugh, silently, against his shins.

“Yes, exactly so,” says Octavius. “Penetrate me. Make me beg for you.”

_Like you begged for me._

“Yeah, okay. We can do that,” says Joel.

But Joel is still hurting; it’s going to be tricky to maneuver to make this happen.   

“So uh, how do you wanna do this?” he says. “I’m not at my best right now.”

Octavius smiles up at him.

“Allow me to do the work,” he says. “It will be...most pleasurable, I promise.”

Dry-mouthed, Joel nods.

Octavius forms a single vine, thick and round, but narrowing gradually at the end. It crawls up Joel’s legs, brushing his chest, and rests against his jaw. 

“Lick it, please,” says Octavius.

Seriously? But Joel has an intense, burning need to know where this is going. So he takes it into his mouth and gets it good and wet. It tastes kind of spicy, almost like arugula; Joel is never going to be able to eat a salad the same way again.

Octavius inhales sharply, and the thing in Joel's mouth flexes.

“Hmm,” he says. “Yes, that--should do.” 

The vine retreats, shining-slick. Octavius kneels, legs slightly apart. He leans forward onto his hands, and the vine snakes over his hip, dipping into the valley between his cheeks.

Fuck. No fucking way.

Joel can’t tear his eyes away. He watches the vine wriggle and, slowly, Octavius’s body swallows it. Joel’s own ass clenches in hot sympathy.

“Oh,” says Octavius.

He closes his eyes and groaned. Joel can see his cock, already stiff, start to drip. Octavius hitched forward, canting his hips. Joel watched the vine slide in and out, fractions of an inch each way.

“I could come just like this,” Octavius says. “You can’t imagine how this feels, not really.” 

Holy shit. 

Joel understands now. The vine works back and forth, stretching Octavius wide, and he can feel everything the vine feels, too….he is literally fucking himself. 

It’s the hottest thing Joel has ever seen in his life. 

“Fuck,” says Joel. 

Joel is hard again. He takes his cock in his fist and bucks into it as he watches Octavius. He smears precome around with his thumb and groans. 

Octavius looks at him like he’s starving. He crawls forward, the vine still inside him, and fuck, how does that feel, how good, Joel wonders. He feels another drop of precome well up.

“Please, let me,” says Octavius.

Joel can only nod, and then he’s enveloped by Octavius’s soft, perfect mouth. Octavius rocks back and forth, onto Joel’s cock, and away, back against himself, fucking and fucked, sucking hard, one hand against Joel’s hips and the other around his own dick, squeezing precome up and out. Joel moans.

“Shit, yes,” says Joel. “Suck me, fuck yourself, cram it in there, take it all.” 

He is only half aware of what he says--ridiculous stuff, but he felt his balls start to rise regardless. 

“Stop,” says Joel. “Wait, shit.”

Octavius stops moving. Even his tongue is still. Joel fights not to push into his mouth some more and just be done with it.

“I want to fuck you,” says Joel. “Need to. But I’m so close.”

Octavius pulls away, leaving Joel washed shiny and slick with spit. With a groan, he eases the vine out of himself and quietly reabsorbs it.

“Then fuck me,” says Octavius.

He braces his arms against the back of the couch and straddles Joel’s hips. He drops down, inch by tender inch, until Joel is fully inside him. The smooth skin of his ass rubs against Joel’s balls and thighs. Joel pants into the cushions.

“Perfect,” he says. “Not gonna last, though.” 

He angles his hips. Octavius rises above him and slides back down again, fucking himself on Joel. Joel thrusts up to meet him as much as he could. Octavius’s eyes flashed.

“Yes,” he says. “Give me your all.” 

Octavius braces himself, careful not to touch Joel's injuries, and begins a long, undulating move that ratchets Joel’s desire up to the edge. Joel can feel the need to come rising in the back of his throat as Octavius ripples around him.

He thrusts again. And again. Octavius bites hard on his shoulder, and the wet heat of his orgasm smears against Joel’s belly. Sparks fly behind his eyes, and he comes, sweet and easy, burning up inside Octavius. Octavius keeps riding him, squeezing and moving around him until there’s nothing left that Joel can give. 

Joel groans when Octavius disengages and leans against his good side.

“Fuck,” says Joel. “Gimme a cigarette.”

Octavius retrieves a pack from Joel’s pants and lights one. Joel closes his eyes and smokes for a few minutes, feeling the afterglow fighting against the throbbing pain from the beating. Joel sighs and blows smoke at the ceiling.

“I suppose this is goodbye,” says Octavius.

Joel cranes his neck, trying to get a good look at Octavius’s face.

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be,” says Joel. “We’re fucking great together.”

Octavius smiles. It’s not a happy expression.

“And that is exactly what tells me it does,” says Octavius. “I’m afraid you’re enthralled.” 

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” says Joel. 

“If we continue to meet, you will die a most exquisite death,” says Octavius. “And soon, by the looks of you.” 

“Bullshit,” says Joel. “I just need a little time to get better from, uh, this.”

He gestures at his bruises.

“I feel way fucking better than I look, I promise,” says Joel.

“No,” says Octavius.

Joel stares at him. Octavius actually looks kind of sad. Regretful, even.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he says. “About not seeing me.”

Privately, he wonders if Octavius might also be serious about, somehow, killing him from too much sex. Joel crushes his cigarette out on the side table.

“I have enjoyed our time together,” says Octavius. “I will treasure it when I return to my brethren.”

Octavius stands and shakes himself, like a dog. His clothing appears on his body.

Joel finds himself halfway off the couch without even realizing he’d moved. He’s reaching out to Octavius. 

“See?” says Octavius. “You’d follow me to the ends of the earth right now, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” says Joel. “I wouldn’t.”

But it’s a transparent, blanket denial, and Octavius has no trouble seeing through the lie.

“Yes you would,” says Octavius. “Fortunately for you, you can’t follow where I’m going.”

Joel watches something like fear move across Octavius’s face.

“You don’t want to leave either, do you?” he says. 

Octavius shakes his head.

“It’s rather that I don’t want to return home,” he says. “But it can’t be helped. The contract is fulfilled.”

“So let’s make another one,” says Joel. “Right? that’s how your crazy rules work." 

“It’s not that simple,” says Octavius. “You have nothing left to give, except your life.”

“So take it,” says Joel. “Fuck, my life is shitty anyway. I wouldn’t miss much.”

He thinks about his brother, and Douglas, and Zack, and his fucked up whipping boy status with Starling, and how pointless it all is.

“No,” says Octavius. “I refuse.”

He swallows, and Joel watches his throat work.

“I would rather go back there,” says Octavius. “I will not take your life.” 

“Well fuck you then,” says Joel.

Octavius just looks at him, and Joel feels so small and mean he can hardly stand himself.

“Goodbye Joel,” says Octavius.

A great shadow passes through the room, and a wind that smells like water and rock. Joel closes his eyes, sits back down, and tries not to cry.

He knows without looking that Octavius is gone.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel spends two days in bed laid out with the worst hangover he’s ever had in his life, and he thinks it’s probably less the alcohol he’s drinking to cope with Octavius (fuck he doesn’t want to say the words out loud) _breaking up with him_ and more the fact that he hasn’t had enough of Octavius’s magic dick. ‘Cause fuck him for having literally addictive sex, right? If that is what it is. Joel can’t deny that he can’t think about anything except convincing Octavius coming back. He sleeps in fits and starts and dreams that Octavius is there, watching him, but that he won’t speak.

The worst part is, Joel knows he wouldn’t have given a shit if doing Octavius wouldgoing to kill him if he were still having sex with Octavius.  When Joel thinks about it, really thinks about that statement, it hits him that Octavius is right. This is so far beyond normal. It's like nicotine withdrawal to the millionth power. Joel is willing to do anything, _anything_ to make Octavius come back. Octavius may have mentioned something about enthrallment which, as it turns out, is pretty much willing sexual slavery, if the impulses his body is destroying him with are any indication.

On the first day, Joel can only huddle miserably in his bed and wait out the shakes and the fever and the headache stabbing him through the eyes and the delusional dreams and the way his whole body cried out for Octavius. Joel breaks a bit, frantically dialing Octavius’s number and getting an out-of-service recording twenty times in the first hour of the first day. (He doesn't stop trying to call Octavius until six in the morning the day he's due back at work.)

On the second day, he smokes and he drinks and he jerks himself raw, fruitlessly trying to re-create the things he’d felt with Octavius. Coming just isn’t enough any more. It's mechanical, almost dissatisfying.

On the morning of the third day, Joel is forcing himself to eat a bowl of cereal before work, the first solid food he’s had since lunch three days ago, when he has a moment of clarity.

Octavius isn’t going to call him back. And maybe, just maybe, someday far in the future, Joel will be okay with that.

Joel tried to keep this idea in mind the whole way to work: just keep one foot in front of the other, one moment at a time, just like anything else. He might not feel like it today, or tomorrow, or next week, but he could manage to push through just about anything. Even this.

His resolution lasts as far as the front door of the office, because Augustine is standing there, with Starling, and they’re _laughing together_.

The. FUCK.

“Ah, good morning Joel,” says Starling. “I’m so pleased to introduce you to Augustine Goodwin. We are exploring a partnership between his firm and ours.”

“We’ve met,” says Joel.

His jaw hurts from clenching it. He jams his fists into his pocket.

“Oh have you?” says Starling. “Marvelous!”

Joel knows that Starling is doing what he does best: instigating and making Joel helplessly miserable.

Joel tunes the two of them out, trying to get a grip on himself. He isn’t sure which one of them he wants to punch more. He runs through all his reasons why this would be bad on so many levels. How the fuck had they even met?

“--And I have you to thank for it, Joel,” says Starling. “Although it is very naughty of you to try to keep Augustine to yourself.”

Starling flaps a hand at him. Joel spies a small, cream-colored rectangle slotted between his fingers.

God damn it. It’s Octavius’s card, the one Joel thought he’d lost, or had disappeared (or in some of his delusional moments, thought maybe had never existed in the first place.)

“I must say, our business lunches over the past few days have been very productive, thanks to you,” says Starling.

His eyes cut like glass, and Joel feels sick. Three days? Joel is bitter. He can’t stop himself from wondering if Augustine had fucked Starling before or after he’d left Joel. His stomach flips: maybe it was both.

“It’s a pity you’ve been out sick,” says Starling. “But here I am, holding up your morning. Why don’t you get settled in at your desk and we can meet later to catch up.”

Starling scrutinizes him, and his face twists in a little moue of concern, all as fucking fake as could be.

“You still don’t look too well,” he says. “Try to take it easy. It’s only your first day back, after all.”

He claps Joel across the shoulders, and Joel can’t suppress a flinch. Something hot lights up in Starling’s eyes.

“Welcome back,” he says. “Now, Augustine, how does your schedule look?’

“I’m quite free,” says Augustine. “What did you have in mind?”

There's a certain glitters in Augustine’s eyes as he and Starling talk over meeting for drinks one day soon. They’re almost perfectly compatible, Joel thinks, being dyed in the wool sadists and all. Hell, they even look alike, kinda: dark hair, glasses, matching crooked grins. It’s like some sick funhouse mirror, like the two sides of the coin of Joel’s fucked life. Joel congratulates himself on not screaming when the door to Starling’s office finally thumps shut and he doesn’t have to see or hear either of them.

He slumps at his desk and rests his head on the cool glass.

Joel can’t stop Octavius from doing whatever the fuck he wants. Which apparently is to make Joel’s life a living hell by doing his goddamn boss. Octavius doesn’t need his help or want it, he’s made that abundantly clear.

“Damn it,” Joel says.

Joel can’t even save himself from Starling, so there’s zero chance that there’s anything he can do when Octavius finds out what Starling’s really like, assuming all the amazing fucking they’re bound to do doesn’t kill Starling first. Now there’s something to obsess over, is whether or not they’ve fucked. He bets they have. A lot. Joel simmers in his anger and hurt.

Still, even now, Joel can’t help thinking about how good Octavius looks. He can’t get Octavius out of his head.

Joel groans against his desk and wishes the day was already over.

Eventually, it is.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Three weeks After Octavius (and isn’t that sad, Octavius gets his own fucking _era_ in Joel’s life) Joel is woken from a sound sleep to someone pounding on his door. He squints at the clock. It’s four in the morning. He reluctantly prys himself out of his bed and goes to the door to see what the problem is.

It’s Octavius, and he looks like total shit: sickly and pale and bruised to fuck, washed out in a red shirt.

“Starling’s dead,” says Octavius. “Let me in, please?”

In a flash, Joel realizes that Octavius’s shirt isn’t actually red. He is bleeding _everywhere_.

“Fuck,” says Joel. “Fuck, come in before someone sees you.” 

He sweeps the piles of newspapers and cigarette butts off his kitchen table and helps Octavius up onto it.

Octavius peels back his shirt.

“Oh shit,” says Joel. “That’s uh...not supposed to look like that.”

There is a gaping wound across Octavius’s abdomen, and some of his insides aren’t inside any more.

“I’ll be all right,” says Octavius. “I’d fix it myself but it is--ugh--a bit painful.”

“Fuck,” says Joel. “You need a doctor.”

But even as he says that, he sees some of the smaller wounds dotting Octavius’s chest--burns, cuts, bruises--start to fade into normal skin.

“Quickly,” says Octavius. “Push the organs back, before it closes.”

Joel fumbles one of the kitchen drawers open and sticks his hands in a couple of sandwich baggies. It's as close to clean as he's gonna get. He can't bear the thought of touching Octavius's guts barehanded.

Octavius groans and shouts, and bites his lips ragged while Joel does his best to put everything back in place. Blood runs off the kitchen table and pools underneath. Joel is sweating like a bastard the whole time, but he finally does it.

“Christ,” says Joel. “Oh fuck, shit, shit.”

He doesn't have any bandages. How is he supposed to wrap Octavius up so that things would stay put? Joel can't do it again, he just can't. And Octavius really isn't looking so hot either.

Joel drops his bloody makeshift gloves on the floor and thinks.

“Ah, got it,” says Joel.

He dumps a drawer out and snags a roll of plastic wrap.

“Can you arch your back, just a little?” says Joel.

“I can try,” says Octavius.

Moving around makes him bleed more, but at least his intestines don’t pop out again, thank fuck. Joel covers Octavius tightly with plastic wrap, until about half the roll is gone and Octavius’s torso looks like a b-grade mummy.

Joel turns to the sink and washes his hands a bunch, watching the blood swirl around the drain. He can’t stop shaking. Shit, what is he supposed to do? Octavius needs to be in a bed with his legs up to keep the rest of his blood where it needed to be, he knew that much. But the blood will stain the floors, if he doesn’t mop it up. And what if Octavius has left blood in the hall? Anyone who comes knocking now will think Joel killed someone.

_Starling’s dead._

Joel takes a deep breath and tries to focus. The bed. The bed should be first so maybe Octavius won’t die.

“Stay right here, “ says Joel. “Just--stay here and don’t move.”

“All right,” says Octavius.

He twists the taps shut, and the only noise in the room is Octavius’s shallow breathing.

Joel crosses from the kitchen to the living room, then down the short hall to the bedroom. He pulls all the covers back from the bed and shakes his head. He needs a tarp or something, to keep Octavius off the mattress in case he bleeds through the wrappings. Joel doesn’t like the idea of him clotting until he is stuck to the sheets, either. Well, okay. So he doesn't have a tarp. What can he use that's big and water-tight? Aha.

Joel races to the bathroom and tears his shower curtain down. It's vinyl. That should work. He tak two seconds to make sure Octavius is still breathing before he spreads the shower curtain over the bed. Okay. Good enough, maybe. He comes back to the kitchen and finds Octavius staring at the ceiling, eyes half-open.

“Okay,” says Joel. “Let’s get you off the table and into the bed.”

“Thank you,” says Octavius.

Together, they manage to get Octavius on his feet again. They stagger down the hall and, with painstaking care, get Octavius onto the bed.

“Thank you,” says Octavius. “I believe I might close my eyes now.”

“Lemme get you something to drink,” says Joel. “You’re gonna be crazy thirsty real soon.”

It scares Joel to think how much liquid Octavius has just lost in blood.

Joel goes to the kitchen to get a glass. 

Shit.

The kitchen looks like the scene of a horror film. There is blood everywhere and, where Octavius’s shirt had been, there's a congealed lump of something gross and black-red. It looks like dead, rotting flesh.

Joel clings to the sink and pukes until he can’t puke any more. He rinses his mouth straight from the tap.

Then, Joel grabs for the closest bottle of alcohol and takes a good, bracing swig. And another. He gasps against the backsplash and waits to make sure his stomach is settled for now.

As soon as he cab stand again, Joel gets out a bunch of trash bags and starts cleaning. He unrolls a bunch of paper towels and sets them to soak up the blood from the floor and from the table. Using a couple of baggies like gloves, Joel scoops up the mystery lump. It is floppy and horrible and he almost has to bear-hug it to get it into the garbage bag, but he gets it in there.

And then he throws up again.

Mopping up the blood is a little easier. Lots of paper towels, another garbage bag, and enough bleach to choke a horse. Ditto for the kitchen table. As for the living room, Joel finds himself spot-cleaning the shitty low-pile carpeting for the first time ever, sponging up the splatters from Octavius’s abrupt re-entry into his life. It isn’t perfect, but it's better. Hardly even noticeable. Joel even pokes his head out into the hallway but doesn’t see any blood there, which is the best thing to happen all day.

Joel checks himself then, and finds he is crusty with drying blood.

“Oh gross,” he says.

He strips and tossed his clothes in with the rest of the trash. Joel does an extra soap and scrub in the shower, until he feels really, truly clean, and he doesn't see any more rusty colored water washing around in the bottom of the tub. Joel whips a towel around his waist and steps out of the shower into a really big fucking puddle.

“Shit,” says Joel.

Oh thank fuck. It's just water. Right. The shower curtain.

So Joel towels off hastily and drops the towel on the floor to suck up the water. He hopes it isn’t enough to leak down into the next apartment, but it's hard to tell how much might have already seeped down the crack between the tub and the linoleum. The last thing he needs is an angry neighbor coming upstairs.

Joel gets a pair of sweats out of the hamper and puts them on so he can run downstairs to the dumpster with the garbage before the truck comes. He really should put on something clean, cause these ones are pretty ripe, but he doesn't want to look at Octavius bleeding on his bed quite yet. So dirty pants it is.

He makes it down to the dumpster and back up again without incident.

Upon entering his apartment again, Joel gives everything a good look. No blood anywhere, no scary trash, nothing to show that anything out of the ordinary is going on. Good. He strips out of his sweats and sits on the sofa, naked, clean, and fresh out of adrenaline. The whole apartment reeks of bleach, but it's better than blood. The single windows in the living room and the kitchen are doing their best, but the ventilation in this place is shit.

It will still be a while before Joel stopped imagining the scent of Octavius’s blood every time he inhales.

Oh fuck, Octavius. What if he is dead on Joel’s bed, right now?

Joel drags himself up off the couch and goes one last time to the bedroom on rubbery legs. He bursts through the door and his eyes go straight to the bed. Octavius is there, and he is breathing.

“You awake?” says Joel.

“Yes,” says Octavius. “I don’t think I can sleep.”

Good, because did he have some questions for Octavius.

Joel rolls the edge of the shower curtain up and sits down on the remaining sliver of his bed. He taps a cigarette out of the pack he kept on the nightstand and lights it.

“What the fuck did you do?” says Joel. “And why the fuck did you come to me?”

“I’ve killed Starling,” says Octavius.

Joel blinks, processing.

“No shit,” says Joel. “Looks like he tried to kill you first.”

“Not exactly,” says Octavius.

Joel wafts a smoke ring towards the closet door while he waits for Octavius to explain. He listens to the slow, sawing breaths Octavius drew. Octavius sighs.

“Starling wanted to contract with me,” he says. “He desired my suffering, and my debasement.”

No real surprises there, except maybe that Octavius thought it was a good idea to indulge Starling’s appetites.

“And?” says Joel.

“And so I gave him what he wanted,” says Octavius. “I gave him all my suffering.”

Octavius makes it sound like he has given Starling a cake or something. Joel doesn't want to smoke any more. He knocks the cherry off his cigarette and laysit on top of the ashtray.

“He really didn’t expect me to fulfill the contract,” says Octavius. “He looked so very surprised at the end, when I didn’t die.”

Joel wants to ask what Octavius had gotten out of it all, but he doesn’t quite dare. What on earth could be worth dragging your own intestines around on the outside of your body?

Octavius says nothing for a while, and Joel thinks that maybe that's all there is to it.

“So I guess it must have been worth it,” says Joel.

Octavius laughs until he cries, crinkling plastic wrap, until Joel thinks they might need to do another emergency surgery in the kitchen. At last, Joel feels him shrug awkwardly against the bed.

“I got exactly what I bargained for,” Octavius says. “But whether it is worth it remains to be seen.”

Joel feels particularly brave then.

“So what is it?” he says. “What did Starling trade?”

"If I satisfied him in my suffering, everything that is his would be mine, including his place in the world,' says Octavius. “I will never need to return to the Pit, where my kind waste their lives.”

“That sounds awful,” says Joel. “The--what did you call it? The Pit?”

“Oh it is,” says Octavius. “You see, there are real shadows, false shadows, half shadows, a glimmering multitude of tones and textures among my people. But there is a true darkness even in all of that…”

And slowly, with long pauses in between, he tells Joel about his world.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

_What is his purpose? To eat, to survive, to reproduce?  It should have been enough for him; he is born of the Pit, existed in it. None of the others want more than a meal in the light, to squeeze as much as they could out of the victim of a contract; and they are victims, truly, left dead or damaged by a hunger which blunted its teeth in their lives._

_Beyond the rapacious crowd, there is darkness._

_There are shades and shades of blackness in the pit, it is true, but there a darkness that scares him. When the self and the name and the conscious will of his people depart, that individual joins a wave of darkness that exists at the very fringes of perception. That darkness lives without intent, without purpose or thought or even animal cunning. It exists, and it drags inside of it the remains of his people, countless hundreds and thousands. And the only thing that remains of any of them is the urge to feed, magnified through this ocean of used-to-be and particles and fragments of dreams. Every year, the darkness slips a little closer, eats away a little more of the space between existence and itself. It terrifies him to the core._

_His goal has been simple: avoid the blackness, whatever it takes. Survive. And, perhaps, find a way to live forever in the sun._

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel calls in sick to work and lays on his couch instead, wishing he trusted himself to get supremely drunk. He watches a spider crawl across the ceiling for a while, and then he tracks the movement of the sunlight lancing through the window.

He keeps straining to hear Octavius in the bedroom, to reassure himself that he’s still alive.

Joel’s thoughts circle endlessly, furiously, trying to sort through the unbelievable, awful things Octavius had told him. He’d had no idea, none at all. But would he have believed any of if before? Of course not. No rational person would. So why does Joel feel so guilty about it now? It’s not like he could have done a damn thing to help, even if Octavius had asked for it...which he hadn’t.

Joel supposes if even half of it is true, he would have killed Starling without a second of hesitation. Though, as he understood it, Starling’s death is a happy little byproduct. It isn’t even about Starling at all, in the end, and that’s one of the hardest things for Joel to try to come to terms with.

What kind of a monster does that make Joel? He doesn’t have an answer, even though he thinks about it for hours.

Just as the sun is setting, Joel hears Octavius stirring.

“You okay in there?” he says.

He pitches his voice to carry.

Octavius doesn’t answer right away. It sounds like he’s pacing around the room or something.

Joel sits up and twists around so he can see down the hall.

“Octavius?” he says.

“Just a moment.”

And Octavius comes reeling out of the bedroom, leaning hard against the walls. The plastic wrap squeals against the paint.

“Shit,” says Joel. “Stay right there, let me help.”

Octavius frowns at him.

“I’ll be all right,” he says. “But you can help me take all this off when I get to you.”

“You should still be in bed!” says Joel. “you’re still hurt, I know it.”

Octavius takes a few more shaky steps and props himself against the top of the couch.

“I should be sufficiently healed,” he says. “Starling’s life is more valuable than he might have thought, in that respect.”

Octavius gives Joel a pointed look, which Joel ignores.

“Look, if I help unwrap you, would you please sit the fuck down?” says Joel. “I don’t want you falling over on my floor.”

Octavius nods.

Joel unwinds yards and yards of plastic from Octavius’s body. He gets to the end and stares. There’s a wicked, tearing, clawing fresh pink scar across his stomach, but that’s it. No blood, no open wound. Nothing. True, Octavius looks like he’s lost about twenty pounds overnight, but he’s alive.

“I’ll be damned,” says Joel.

A second thought comes to Joel after another minute or two of examining Octavius.

“So,” says Joel. “Clothing?”

Octavius looks startled for a moment. Then, he smiles. Slowly, like it’s pushing its way out of his body from the inside, a t-shirt settles across his chest. Octavius grunts and grits his teeth. A pair of boxers coalesce. Octavius is sweating by the end of it.

“That looked hard,” says Joel. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” says Octavius. “I’m afraid I’m a bit weakened, and I am somewhat low on matter at the moment.”

Joel thinks about the lump that had been on his kitchen table. His gorge rises and he tries to swallow it back before he pukes again.

“I may have thrown something of yours out,” says Joel. “It was super fucking gross. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want that bit any more.”

Octavius laughs with his mouth open, and Joel can see the pink insides of his cheek.

“I will be fine,” he says. “I need time to regenerate, but I will be fine.”

Octavius sits on the other end of the couch.

“I have a present for you,” he says.

“Um,” says Joel.

“Here, take this,” says Octavius.

He passed a plastic card over to Joel.

“It’s a credit card?” says Joel.

“It’s a debit card,” says Octavius. “Your debit card. I would suggest you call the bank.”

Joel looks sideways at Octavius, who has a very smug expression just then.

“What did you do?” he says.

“Just call them,” says Octavius.

So Joel does.

“I’m sorry, how much did you say? Really? Ok then, thank you for your time. Yeah. You too.”

For the second time in an hour, Joel doesn’t know what to say. And then, he does.

“What the FUCK Octavius! What did you do?!?”

He heard his own voice bouncing off the walks, echoing back at him, but he doesn’t care just then.

“I thought you would be pleased,” says Octavius. “I really have no need for it, myself, but all you mortals seem to chase after it.”

“You can’t just fucking give someone that much money!” says Joel. “Here, take it the fuck back.”

He tries to get Octavius to take the bank card.

“It is part of my agreement with Starling,” says Octavius. “Everything that was his is now mine. Including his assets.”

Octavius leans in close, his green eyes earnest and soft.

“Besides, I rather think you’ve paid for it many times over,” he says. “Starling did so enjoy the suffering of others.”

Joel gapes at him.

“You---but--”

“Among his many other sins, Starling was an insufferable braggart,” says Octavius. “It’s not worth much, but I am sorry. Please, take the money.”

“I can’t take a dead guy’s money!” says Joel. “I’m pretty sure the police will be very interested when he turns up dead!”

Octavius pats him on the shoulder, butterfly-quick before Joel can stop him.

“There’s been an unfortunate house fire, and the police will, sadly, find that Starling has passed away in it,” says Octavius. “But not to worry. All the paperwork transferring ownership had been processed, notarized, and filed weeks ago. It’s all quite legal. Nothing suspicious. You’ll see.”

Joel stares, uncomprehending, at the card that is still in his hand. Starling is dead, and Joel has just shot up a whole fucking lot of tax brackets.

“So this is mine?” he says. “Really, really mine?”

“Yes,” says Octavius.

He smiles, and Joel found himself unwillingly warmed by it.

“So tell me Joel, what are you going to do?”

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel went in to work the next morning so he could officially quit his job.

“Joel, did you see the papers today? I’ve got lawyers and cops crawling out of my ass!”

Douglas looks harassed this morning, and Joel almost feels bad for him. But it all seems to be playing out as Octavius had said, just the final dots over the i’s on everyone’s paperwork, since the oh-so-tragic house fire left Two Djinn minus its president. (And good fucking riddance, thinks Joel.)

“So I’m quitting,” says Joel. “Right now.”

Douglas looks absolutely aggrieved. New wrinkles are carving themselves across his forehead, and Joel can almost see his blood pressure rising. Douglas’s teeth are clenched tight around a cigarette, but he isn’t actually smoking.

“Starling just dumped this pile of shit on me by dying,” says Douglas. “The old bastard willed me controlling interest. What the fuck am I supposed to do with all this? And now you, you miserable dick, are quitting?”

Joel shrugs. He watches ash fall from the end of the cigarette onto the paperwork at Douglas’s fingertips. Douglas glares and wipes it away with his sleeve.

“Not my problem,” Joel says. “But maybe...hire some new people?”

If looks could kill, Joel would be dead, resurrected, and killed again. With prejudice.

“You absolute moron,” says Douglas.

“Maybe try whats-his-face in the mail room,” says Joel. “Gavin? Gary? The kid who looks at you like he wants to blow you. I bet he’d take a pay raise and come answer the phones for you.”

To Joel’s surprise, a hint of a blush spreads on Dogulas’s cheekbones. Douglas sighs and pushes his hair out of his face.

“Garrett,” says Douglas. “His name is Garrett. Now fuck off, deserter. I've got a goddamn company to run.”

“Yeah, whatever Douggie,” says Joel. “You know you love me. I’ll see you around.”

Douglas sniffs, his lip curled, and turns his attention back to the massive pile of paperwork on his desk. Still, Joel knows he’ll be all right. Douglas lives for disaster. Sure enough, Douglas is grumbling and smoking like a chimney by the time Joel leaves the room.

Joel feels good, lighter than air. He grins to himself and gives a double-fingered salute towards Starling’s office on his way out the front door. 

And that’s the end of that.

 

=+=+=+=+=+=

 

Joel wanders around the city for the rest of the day, until his feet hurt and he doesn’t know where he is any more. Or at least, he thinks he doesn't, but when he looks up, he’s in front of the coffee shop on Willow and third, and Octavius is waving at him from inside.

Joel goes inside, slides into the booth, and starts sucking down the coffee that’s waiting for him.

“So,” says Joel. “What are you going to do next?”

“I’m not sure,” says Octavius. “I don’t believe I’ll be pursuing contracts and negotiations again any time soon.”

“Good,” says Joel.

It just slips right out. He pretends not to notice the smile on Octavius’s face.

“What about you?” says Octavius.

“Well, I quit my job,” says Joel. “And I’m thinking maybe a nicer apartment might be in order. But other than that….”

“It appears we are both at loose ends,” says Octavius.

He sips his coffee, and Joel sees his tongue dart out to catch a drip along the rim.

“You could stay,” says Joel. “If you wanted.”

Octavius shakes his head.

“I can’t,” he says.

“Why not?” says Joel. “You could spend all the money, or live like a monk, I don’t give a fuck. It’s just...you seem like you could use a friend while you figure things out.”

Joel is a little surprised to find that he really means it. He feels more sure of himself now, and less like he’s going to break into itty bitty pieces just seeing Octavius on the street. Probably it has something to do with the part where he stuck Octavius’s guts back where they belong.

“I am still a danger to you,” says Octavius. “And besides, I have seen so little of this world. I may do some traveling.”

Octavius sighs into his coffee cup. Joel isn't sure if it's a gift or a curse that even sighing looks sexy when Octavius does it.

“You could come with me,” says Octavius. “Surely there are places you would like to go.”

A part of Joel wants to say yes, but it’s not a big part.

“Nah, I need to be here,” he says. “My brother--he’s got a parole hearing. Maybe he’ll get it this time, now that….things are different.”

Maybe Kurt would want to see him, and maybe he wouldn’t. Joel’s been too twisted up and afraid for him (and for himself) to try to see him while he’s been upstate for the last ten years. But he wants to be there, just in case. Even if all he can do is something dumb like slip Kurt a bunch of cash so he won’t have to struggle quite so hard as a freshly exed ex-con, Joel wants to be there.

Comprehension passes over Octavius’s face.

“Then I suppose this is goodbye,” says Octavius.

Joel snorted, and Octavius looks puzzled.

“Like fuck it’s goodbye,” he says. “Kiss me like you mean it, dumbass. And call me back sometimes, if you’re too busy to answer the phone when I call.”

Octavius kisses him, gentle and slow. Longing flares in Joel, but he does his best to tamp it down.

“I’ll see you around sometime,” says Joel.

He tossed a couple bills on the table for the coffee.

“Until we meet again,” says Octavius. “My friend.”

Joel can do this, can make a new life with the best parts of what’s left. It’s just like every other day: moment by moment, one foot in front of the other.

He smiles all the way out of the coffee shop.

 

He’ll find his way.

=+=+=+=+=+=

  
  
  


\------------


End file.
